Passage To Dawn
by ilyahna
Summary: Latent attraction between Goren and Eames seems at the verge of blossoming into something deeper. Then Eames faces a dramatic, painful turn of events in her own life. Will the changes she is forced to make bring them closer together, or drive them apart?
1. Compulsion

_Note from me: All the reviews from Midnight inspired me to continue my thought process on how our two detectives might get together. I have not really read much ship-fic so if I inadvertently repeat a theme, hopefully it won't detract overmuch. I have a feeling there isn't much left that is totally unique. This story, for the sake of pace, will be set against at least one casefile, and perhaps more. I have put a lot of effort into plotting the crime so that it's interesting and at least somewhat mysterious, and I hope I write it in an enjoyable way. :)  
_

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**Passage To Dawn: Chapter One**

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The sun had climbed high overhead, a pale yellow smudge behind its veil of haze. The sky was a late fall hue that belied the November heat. Christmas was only a month away, when all New York should be blanketed in snow, but dotting the park were quite a few trees that hadn't yet changed color, green mixed among the reds and fire-yellows and the purplish dogwoods. 

Although she appreciated the natural beauty of the season, Alex had to admit to herself as she glanced up at the city that rose behind the trees that she dreaded what oncoming fall symbolized. In a matter of weeks, temperatures would edge toward the thirties and the Atlantic currents would dump snow on the city roads, to be churned to dirty sludge by bad-tempered motorists. It would make getting anywhere even more of a nightmare.

Alex glanced away from the city and shrugged out of her leather coat. Despite the portent of the changing colors, it was still seventy degrees. A light breeze moved through her hair, and caught at one of the pages of her report. She snatched it before it blew away, and tossed her jacket behind her on the blanket. Looking down the hill, she saw her nephew and his new best friend, and she smiled, thinking she'd done a good thing introducing the two.

Well...they _had, _in a manner of speaking, met before. Bobby had come to the hospital the night that Conor was born, and he'd held him then. It was a memory Alex treasured, seeing the big detective cradling her tiny newborn nephew. Conor had been not much larger than Bobby's two hands, and her partner had seemed fascinated and almost proud. He had always been eager to peruse the stacks of pictures Alex had brought to work over the past years, and had genuinely seemed to share her joy as Conor grew.

Her nephew was now just three weeks shy of his fourth birthday, and it was a testament to the way time seemed to fly by that Bobby hadn't seen him since that night at the hospital. She'd always intended to get them together, because she knew Bobby liked kids, but then there'd been his mother's long illness, the ordeal with Frank. And work. The time had never seemed right. Yesterday, however, she'd wrapped up a case, and decided to take Friday off, and fill out her paperwork at home. The uncharacteristically nice weather, though, had prompted Alex to ask her sister if she could take Conor for the day, and she'd called to invite Bobby without intending to take no for an answer.

As it turned out, Alex hadn't needed to persuade him. It was the first time she'd seen him since driving him home from her house a week before, and she'd wondered from his pleased tone on the phone if perhaps she should have invited him to do something sooner. Now, watching Bobby sitting cross-legged beside Conor at the edge of the pond, handing him pieces of torn bread to throw to the ducks, she was glad she'd called. Two days ago, Bobby had finally gone in for the psychiatric evaluation with Dr. Olivet, and when she'd called to ask how it went he had seemed down. He still wasn't willing to discuss the future, but she had a feeling that he was nervous about the evaluation.

Playing with a four year old was a good way to lighten up, though. She saw him laughing even now, as Conor pointed at something across the pond. She couldn't hear what her nephew was saying, but she could tell he was on a roll about something. He often took it upon himself to explain things at length to adults, who as Conor saw it, often misunderstood the world around them.

Alex found herself thinking again that Bobby would make a great father, though she doubted he would ever admit that to himself. If he understood anything, it was the concept of self-sacrifice, and putting someone else's needs before his own. She imagined he would be the same sort of lover, devoted, reliable… nothing like his own father. Ironically, she imagined a fear of that was part of why he was still single.

She sighed, and her eyes left them. Relegating one page of her report to the bottom of the stack, she pulled the pen from behind her ear and added her signature to the top page. It wasn't the first time she'd had thoughts like that about Robert Goren, but since the question of his returning to the force had been raised, they seemed to come more frequently. There was no question of having a relationship beyond friendship with him as long as he was her partner- it was unethical, and it was against department policy for good reason. Alex also wasn't the type to sneak about and lie to people, especially not about something that important; the idea of living a double life didn't appeal to her at all, and she had little doubt Bobby would feel the same way about it.

So why, when he'd suggested leaving major case for good, had she pushed him so hard not to?

Her eyes lifted again from the reports, and laughter escaped her throat. Conor was running along the edge of the pond, Bobby lumbering behind him, the both of them being chased away by an irate swan. It was a comical sight, to say the least.

It looked like fun, and Alex slapped the sheaf of papers back into their folder, shoved it into her bag, and was in the process of getting to her feet when her cell phone rang.

Thinking it was her sister, she flipped it open and put it to her ear without checking the caller ID.

"Hey!" she said, taking several steps toward the pond.

_Eames?_

The voice on the other end registered and she stopped walking. "Hey captain," she said.

_Look. I know you wanted to take today off… but I need a personal favor.  
_

Alex looked with longing at her nephew and her partner as they moved away from her. "What's up?" she asked, trying not to sound disappointed.

Not entirely successful. _I'm sorry Eames. I've got something here I need my best people on. Can you and your partner get in here? _

"I've got my nephew, Captain. I'll have to take him home. I can call Miska."

_Not Miska, Eames. Goren. Bring him. _

That surprised her enough that she stood there without speaking for a minute. Then: "Did you get his evaluation back?"

_No._

"Then you talked to the chief?"

_Don't worry about the chief. We'll talk about that later. Just get in here. _

Alex's eyes followed Bobby along the pond, and almost said to Ross _I'm not sure he'll come_, but then she took a deep breath and nodded shortly.

"We'll be there," she promised him, and hoped she was right.

* * *

_A large part of the reason I continued this story is all the encouraging reviews, and the appreciation you all showed for my first effort at a ship fic. If you are enjoying the story, please keep up the communication! If you've criticisms, please be kind, and offer them in a constructive way. _


	2. Resolution

_There's a very slight similarity between the beginning of this case and the case InfinityStar and I are working on in 'Ars Desideri', (which you should read because it's going to be super creepy!) but it diverges greatly in subsequent chapters. The case file in this story will, once I get it set up, move alongside the personal drama between Bobby and Alex. There will be some upheaval coming soon._

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**_Chapter Two_**

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Bobby hadn't offered to argue with her when Alex repeated the captain's words. He'd stood there on the hillside with Conor pulling impatiently on his hand and looked surprised. Alex had waited for him to ask questions, or to tell her once and for all that he'd made up his mind not to return, but instead he stooped down and gathered her nephew into his arms and said merely "let's go." 

Neither had he said anything on the way to One Police Plaza after they'd dropped Conor off at his mother's. Now, riding the elevator to the eleventh floor, she read the strained expression on his face as anxiety.

"Ross said not to worry about the chief," she reassured him softly.

He inhaled deeply and gave her a short smile. "I know." He rubbed two fingers against his temple. "I just…"

Alex chewed her bottom lip for a moment, then said: "Are you sure want to do this?"

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. They both stood there, looking at one another, and it wasn't until the doors began to slide closed once more that Bobby nodded. Alex caught the closing door with one boot and followed her partner into the bullpen.

Ross's door was open, as were the floor length blinds against the glass front of his office. Alex could see him perched on the edge of his desk, speaking to another man who sat, leaning tensely forward, in a chair before him. Halfway across the bullpen, her partner's sure stride had faltered and now he walked behind her, but she could sense him studying this other man just as she was. He might have been older than Ross, his hair, once black, was shot through with gray, immaculately groomed. As Alex paused in the doorway, he turned his face to her, tan and creased, and it was easy to see the anguish in his black eyes. He stood when he saw her, and Alex saw his eyes flick past her to Bobby.

"This is Detective Eames," Ross was saying. "And Detective…"

"…Goren." The other man finished, his eyes on her partner. "I've heard a lot about you lately." He offered Goren his hand, and Eames looked on in mild curiosity.

"Congressman," Goren mumbled, his tone wary. He shook the man's hand and looked to Ross and back. "What …uh…" He left off with a short shake of his head.

"Aidan Barrow," the man elaborated for Eames' sake, and offered her his hand as well. Eames' forehead creased as she tried to place him. Had they met before?

"Representative Barrow and I went to the academy together," Ross said, standing and moving around his desk. He settled into his chair, folding his arms on the table.

"You were on the job?" Eames asked.

"Fifteen years," Barrow replied. "Military police before that." Now he glanced at Goren again, and Eames thought she saw the ghost of a smile, quickly faded. He cleared his throat, covering his mouth with the back of one hand, and looked a question at Ross. The captain took a deep breath and turned his gaze on his detectives.

"Guys, Congressman Barrow is an old friend of mine. He came here to ask me to look into the death of his son."

Eames looked at Goren, and he returned her glance, his expression puzzled.

"It's not an open case?" Goren asked the Congressman.

"It was ruled a suicide," Ross interjected, and Eames glanced at him. She couldn't tell from the careful set of his features whether Ross bought that.

"My son didn't kill himself." The words carried the weight of conviction, and Barrow held up a hand. "For one, my son didn't have any reason to kill himself. He was happy. Good school, good grades, friends." He raised another finger. "Two, whoever killed him put the gun in his right hand."

Both Eames and Goren stood without speaking, waiting for Barrow to continue, but when he said nothing else, Goren cleared his throat and motioned at the chair behind the Congressman. Then he dragged another chair closer, and as they both sat down, he cast Ross a quick glance.

"You said… whoever killed him put the gun in his… right hand? He was left handed?"

Barrow nodded, and replied curtly, "All his life."

"Did they test for gun-shot residue on his hands? Or his clothes?" Eames folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the desk.

It was Ross that answered. "No. They didn't." He flipped open a manila folder, lifting the corner of a typed report. The creased brow and the frown told Eames that the Captain indeed found something about this case he didn't like.

"They found him, in the car, gun in his hand, bullet in his head…" Barrow was saying, and he paused for breath. When he continued, much of the anger was carefully edited from his tone. "And that's as far as they went with it. If I hadn't seen the police report, seen the photos…"

"When did this happen?" Goren asked gently.

"A week ago. Last Saturday night. I tried to talk to his roommate, but…"

Ross held a hand up toward his old friend. "We'll talk to the roommate, Aidan. You go home, get some rest, be with your family."

The congressman looked at the captain unhappily, and Eames recognized the cop in him, the need to facilitate the search for the truth. But the cop in him also recognized that he had done all that he could, bringing his suspicions here. Hesitantly, he stood, and smoothed his tailored suit before Ross' stern expression.

"You'll be in touch, Danny?" he asked, and there was no mistaking the pleading tone.

The captain's face softened, clear sympathy in his green eyes. He nodded. "You know I will, Aidan. Soon."

The congressman held his gaze for a moment longer, seeming unsure, glanced down at the folder beneath Ross' hands, and then he sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, nodding. He turned, flashed Eames a practiced, false smile, and held his hand out again to Goren.

"I know _you'll _do what it takes to get to the bottom of this, Detective. You have a reputation for being bullheaded."

Goren's lips twitched at that as he took the Congressman's hand. "Some people around here consider that a flaw."

The smile that Aidan Barrow returned now was genuine, amused. "To hell with them," he said, releasing Goren's hand. He gave Ross one last look, nodded to Eames, and walked through the door.

Eames watched him go, then turned a dubious expression on the captain. "Murder? Is that grief talking? Or do you think he might be on to something?"

Ross lifted both eyebrows and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands across his chest. "He makes some good points." His eyes came to rest on Goren. "Left handed people do tend to pull the trigger with their left hand. If nothing else, there was some sloppy police work involved in this. I want the two of you to look into it. If it doesn't go anywhere…" He shrugged. He closed the manila folder and passed it to Eames, tilting his head at Goren. "Can you give us a minute, Detective?"

She looked from Ross to Goren, who didn't meet her eyes. Then she took the folder from Ross' hand and nodded, leaving the two of them alone in the office.

* * *

Goren sat slumped in the chair, only partly turned toward the captain. He focused on the floor across the room as he heard the quiet click of Eames closing the door behind her. The silence that extended afterward was broken only by the metal creak of Ross' chair as the captain shifted. Goren could feel his eyes on him, and waited for him to speak.

"I talked to Dr. Olivet this morning," Ross said, his tone not ungentle. Goren felt a twinge of unease. Though he did not feel psychologically unsound, it was something open to interpretation, and he hardly imagined the hour he'd spent with Dr. Olivet was enough to assess his state of mind. Or maybe the fact that it was only an hour would work in his favor.

"She said her report would recommend you fit for duty."

Goren still didn't look up, refusing to let Ross see his relief.

"Look, Bobby…"

The captain's use of his first name did bring his eyes from the floor. Ross almost never referred to him as anything other than Goren, or the even less personal "detective." He studied the captain's face but couldn't read it.

"I saw an opportunity here and I took it," Ross said. "Aidan Barrow wanted you on this case. It gives me some leverage with the chief now."

"We were supposed to meet with him…" Goren trailed off, not wanting to sound as though he were encouraging it.

Ross smiled thinly. "I went over his head." There was a hint of satisfied amusement in his words, and Goren almost smiled at that. If he and Ross had anything in common, it was a mutual dislike of the Chief of Detectives.

"Captain…" he began, made uncomfortable by Ross' implication. The last thing he wanted was yet another person's career on his conscience.

"If you don't think you're up to it, say it," Ross told him without rancor.

Goren stared back at him, a bit stunned by the captain's show of support. He hadn't assumed that the gradually diminishing hostility of Ross' early days with Major Case had been replaced by, perhaps, respect.

"I'm up to it," he told him.

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_Thanks again for all the reviews. I look forward to hearing from more of you!  
_


	3. Groundwork

_Thanks as always for the reviews. I hope the 17 to 8 ratio from chapter one to chapter two doesn't mean not as many people are enjoying this!  
_

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It turned out that when Aidan Barrow had suggested no one had really talked to his son Jeremy's roommate since his death, he was more right than he knew. Eames sat beside Goren on the couch in the apartment Andrew Palmer had shared with the Congressman's son and waited uncomfortably while the young man either put on one hell of a performance, or genuinely experienced his first hint of the news. 

Goren tentatively lifted the cardboard box of Kleenex from the coffee table and held them out to Andrew, who drew two of them gratefully. As he dabbed the tears from cheeks, Eames couldn't help but notice the expensive, red-lacquered manicure.

"That son of a bitch, right-wing bigot," Andrew said, his voice elevated with grief. "The least he could have done was send me a postcard."

Goren's brow creased briefly, then he said: "Who? Congressman Barrow?"

Andrew, looking at him over the Kleenex pressed to his nose, nodded. He sat at the edge of the couch, his posture carefully straight, his ankles crossed. He moved his hands to his lap then, and sniffed. "His father hasn't been here since Jeremy moved in. I thought he was staying at their house this week… it's the only time they see him. But ...you said Jeremy was…shot?"

"His death was um… ruled a suicide."

Andrew looked between the two of them, his delicately shaped eyebrows dipping. "But…you don't think so?"

"We're looking into that," Eames told him.

Andrew's blue eyes filled again, and he set the damp Kleenex, which he had folded neatly into a small square, on the table. Then he picked up a pen, and held his hand out toward the detectives.

"You got something to write on?"

Goren reached into the crevice of the couch where he'd tucked his binder, tore out of a piece of paper and handed it to the younger man. He exchanged a look with Eames as Andrew bent over the page. A moment later, he returned it to Goren.

"That's where I was Saturday night. From five until three. A thousand people saw me there."

Goren raised both eyebrows, folded the page into his binder. "Have you uh… had to deal with detectives before?" he asked.

"I watch a lot of those TV cop dramas…" Andrew said with a shy smile, then blushed scarlet. He snatched the Kleenex from the table and came to his feet, rounding the table for the kitchen. Both detectives stood. "Would anyone…you guys drink a lot of coffee, right? Or is that just on TV?" There was still a slight tremor in his words, and as he turned from an open cabinet and stared at them, coffee cups in his hands, Eames found herself nodding. She got another shy smile in return, and Andrew set the cups on the counter, filling the coffee pot with water as he spoke.

"So you were going to ask when the last time I saw Jeremy was, right?" He flipped the machine on and turned around, wrapping his arms around himself. It was only then that Eames realized what was different about them- completely hairless, like the well-toned legs beneath his cutoff shorts.

Beside her, Goren clasped his folder behind his back, and smiled at Andrew, raising his eyebrow.

"He was here Saturday morning. He said he was going to Therapy that night, but I left before him. I'm not sure…"

"So Jeremy was in therapy?" Eames asked. "Was he depressed?"

Now Andrew laughed, then turned pale, and cleared his throat. "Um…no. Therapy is a place… on West 52nd street. He was going there to film their lounge show."

"Lounge show?" Goren interjected.

Andrew nodded, turning away a moment to fill the coffee cups. Perhaps testament to his state of mind, he opened the refrigerator and poured flavored cream into both cups without asking either of them what they preferred. "For his film project in school," he said, putting a coffee cup in each their hands. He shoved his hands in his back pockets and looked at them. Eames almost smiled as Goren took a sip of his coffee for politeness' sake and managed not to make a face. He never drank it any way but black.

Hers, however, was fine. "What was his film project about?"

"Drag," Andrew answered simply.

Goren set his coffee cup on the counter. "So how close were you with Jeremy?"

Andrew rubbed the back of his neck. "He wasn't gay, if that's what you're asking. Not that I wouldn't have been interested." He blushed again, startling himself into motion. He left the kitchen, and they watched him cross the living room and open a door.

"This is his room," he said, and there were tears on his cheeks again. "Just let yourselves out, ok? I've got a show at Therapy tonight and I'm a mess." Before either of them could speak again, he'd disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

Eames glanced at Goren, and caught that familiar look on his face. The slightly distant eyes, the frown. Something had caught his attention.

"The parking garage where they found Jeremy was less than a block from Therapy," he said in a low voice. "If he was there to film that show, then it's possible there's something on that tape. We need that camera."

Eames nodded, and started for the bedroom. "All his personal effects would have been returned to his father."

"Including the gun he supposedly killed himself with," Goren added dryly, entering Jeremy's room behind his partner.

"If I had ten bucks for every time I've heard the "I didn't know the gun was even missing" story, I wouldn't need a pension," she said, taking in her surroundings. The room was small, a twin-sized bed against the wall in one corner, a single window, blinds open, opposite the door. A chest of drawers and a lamp stood across from the bed, and two bookcases across from one another filled the rest of the space.

"Symmetrical," Goren murmured, standing before one of the bookshelves and gazing at the other. Same size, same placement. Books are all aligned alphabetically by size." He crossed the room, leaned at the waist beside the bed, one long fingered hand tracing the side of the mattress to the forward end, where the sheets were folded into neat, hospital corners.

Eames picked up a blue day planner with the letters NYU embossed in gold on the front. Flipping through it, she said: "He had an appointment with a professor this Monday," she said. Goren stood behind her, peering over her shoulder as she turned the pages. He stepped in closer as she passed December, and caught the edge of one page.

"Wait," he said, turning it back, and Eames ground her teeth in irritation at the warmth that crept through her. Every sense was turned onto the closeness of his body in the small room, the way his chest just touched her shoulder, his thigh pressed against her hip. She focused on the planner, and the date he pointed to. December fourteenth. Written in blue pen was the word _GRADUATION, _followed with several exclamation marks and a smiley-face.

"That look like a kid that's planning to kill himself?"

She frowned. "Maybe he was on his meds when he wrote that."

He stepped away, shuffling through his binder for something, and Eames felt herself let out a slow breath. When she turned toward him, she watched his hands rather than look at his face.

He found what he was looking for, scanning the page. "His tox screen was negative for anti-depressants. A small amount of antihistamine. No alcohol, no drugs." She could feel his eyes on her, but instead she took the ME's report from his hand and looked over it herself.

"Still doesn't explain what he was doing with his father's gun," she said.

She sensed his shoulders rise in a shrug. "Ross said that Barrow hadn't taken it out in years. He could have taken it a long time ago…kept it with him for protection. West 52nd is in Hell's Kitchen."

Eames had regained her composure, so irrationally lost a moment before, and now as she returned the report to her partner she met his gaze thoughtfully. "So maybe something set him off that night in the club?"

"You still buying the suicide story?"

She looked at the book in her hand, set it back on the desk, and crossed her arms. Her eyes traveled once more across the room. "Sometimes you think you know people…" she said, and her gaze came back to rest on him.

A peculiar expression crossed his face at that, and she recognized that he'd read something more into that. Something personal. So she added: "Maybe he had a dark side his father didn't know about it, or maybe the lack of medication in his system _was_ the problem."

Goren's brown eyes searched hers, and he chewed the inside of his cheek in thought. Then he nodded. "Either way," he said, "We have a date tonight."

The statement was so oddly placed that it threw her, and she just looked at him, her lips parted. Belatedly, she realized that he meant Therapy, the club where Jeremy had last been seen alive. She managed a short laugh. "I have a feeling we're going to stick out like a sore thumb."

Goren shrugged. "Wear something short." He flashed her a crafty smile.

She fought the urge to blush like a teenager. "You too," she told him instead, with a sly smile of her own.


	4. Id

* * *

_The music and the voices blended together in a thumping background cacophony, so many sounds that nothing was distinguishable. He was behind the stage, waiting for Andrew, the boy from the apartment, now dressed in a sequin mini skirt and a red wig, to finish his show. He looked down at the drink in his hand, and something about it felt wrong, but he couldn't say what._

_ Then he was moving through the crowd again, a press of bodies, an array of laughter and smiles. No one was looking at him though, and he had to shoulder them aside, assert himself. He saw her over the top of their heads, sitting at the bar, in a short black dress, her legs crossed, leaning forward talking to the bartender with a smile. He knew that smile. The way it made her eyes glitter with humor. He tried to make his way to her, but the people around him wouldn't move. They wouldn't let him through. He turned his head, looking for another way to her, and that's when he saw Frank, standing beside a pay phone on the wall._

_ Goren changed direction, pushing through the crowd now, feeling more worried than angry, although he would have expected the opposite after everything that had happened. But it was always that way. It didn't even surprise him to see his brother there, staring at him across the room with that perpetually grave expression as though he'd known all along Bobby would be there._

_ The crowd thinned as he got closer to him, and by the time he was standing in front of Frank, there was no one else around. The music, even, faded into the background._

_ "What are you doing here, Frank?" he heard himself say. "Where is Donny?"_

_ Frank shook his head, looking up at him, and held out his hand. In it was a dime. "I was trying to call Mom, but this is all the change I have. It's not enough."_

_ Then he was in the car, their SUV, and Eames was driving. They weren't in __New York__, and he didn't recognize what passed them on the street. It was night, and when they pulled off the road to the hotel, it seemed natural, and when he got out and walked to the door, he found that he had the keys in his pocket. He went in, and took off his jacket, and Eames followed him. He shut the door behind her, and locked it, and then he put his arms around her, seeking her lips and finding them, inviting. His hands moved along her back, to the hem of her short black dress, and then he felt her skin, soft, warm, against his fingers. Her own touch strayed below his waist, and he waited for the sensation..._

His eyes opened to the half-light streaming through his bedroom window from the city outside. The cold and a well-spring of unexpected feelings pushed him fully awake, and he moved his leg, pulling at the sheet that was wound around it. The comforter was in the floor, which was where it often ended up, for he rarely slept peacefully.

He looked at the clock as he sat up, forcing himself to wait. Wait to consider what his dream had meant. It was just before five in the morning, and he hadn't been asleep more than three hours. He ran a hand through his hair, worked his fingers along the tense muscles of his neck, and realized that he wasn't likely he would fall asleep again any time soon.

He turned on the bedside lamp, turned off the alarm, and made his way to the bathroom, where he turned on the shower and waited for the hot water to fill the room with steam. When he'd pulled the curtain closed behind him and the sound of the water filled his senses, he allowed himself to think about it.

He and Eames had been at the club earlier that night. She had worn a black dress, not to disguise her profession, but because, she said _"she never got to dress up."_ There was something wrong about that, he thought, and he realized that he had never really considered the fact that Alex Eames might not go on dates. He'd never really thought about that aspect of her personal life at all, in part because he was so wrapped up in his own, and partly because it was a consideration that inevitably left him feeling bitter. He could analyze that in any way he chose. It could be that he felt jealous of her, the way she connected easily with people and the way people responded to her, such as they didn't with him. He made people uncomfortable, on-edge. It was easy for someone that spent so much time alone to feel some bit of dissidence with those to whom human bonds came easily. He could choose to see her as a reflection of what he was not.

Or. He could interpret his reluctance to put much thought into her personal life as another kind of envy. Envy of those close to her. Not the ugly, demeaning jealousy of an immature man, but the more poignant ache of longing. As he massaged the shampoo through his hair, he allowed himself, on the edge of the dream he'd just had, to consider this. What had Freud said about dreams? They were disguised fulfillment of a wish. It didn't seem that here had been much disguised about this one, but he knew himself well enough to know that there had to more to it. He wasn't the sort of man that found satisfaction in gratuitous sex; if he chose to be with a woman, it was because he wanted more from her. Emotional fulfillment. Companionship.

The fact that the aborted sexual encounter had taken place in a motel was an easy one; it was one of the last things his brother had said to him. _Take Eames to a motel_ _and get it out of your system._ He remembered how angry that had made him then, but now, standing in the shower with his eyes closed against the running water, he wondered if there was more to it.

Why, after almost eight years together, had this not surfaced for him before? His mother had been like a curtain between he and the outside world, keeping so much of him to herself. He'd come to admit that her death, while he had grieved, was in every way a release, and anger stirred that he had such difficultly letting Frank go as well. Of course he'd been in there in the dream, between he and Alex…

He opened his eyes, rubbing the hot water across his face, and realized what he was thinking. _Between him and Alex_. What had changed, when before she had been his partner, and he had not made it easy for her to even cross the line as his friend. And now this?

Were the feelings something new, or something latent he was only just beginning to recognize now that he had the emotional energy to contemplate it? He turned the shower off, stepped out and wrapped himself in a towel and thought about the week before, at her house. He recalled easily how comfortable he had felt, sharing a bottle of wine and hearing her talk…even how satisfying it had been to be there, in her home, waiting for her, cooking her dinner. It was akin to the pleasure he'd felt spending the afternoon with she and Conor in the park. When she'd told him the night before that she didn't get to go out much, the aura of a single, perhaps lonely woman that he'd sensed just below the surface that night at her house registered on a different level. Was she just as lonely as he was?

He opened the bathroom door, the steam billowing out around him as he walked across the room, completely awake now. He found himself wanting to analyze every moment of that night, every moment of their entire partnership, looking for some clue that there was more to her feelings. It bothered him to imagine, as perceptive as he knew he was when it came to others, that he could miss something like that in her.

Or in himself.

* * *

_I wanted to wait until after the holidays to continue this. I know a lot of you probably expected me to write the scene at the club, but this is what happened instead when I sat down today. I've finally worked Bobby around to recognizing some things about his feelings, so now things can take a new direction. Being realistic is a little slow with complicated people like Robert Goren, I think. Thanks for all the reviews and I hope to read more! Each element of the dream had a meaning for me, and I'd be interested in your interpretations of it. _


	5. Perspective

* * *

He usually got to work before his partner, but today he took his time getting ready so that when he stopped to buy her a cup of coffee from the stand she liked so much a block from the office, it would still be hot when he got to the eleventh floor. Providence was on his side for once; as he stepped off the elevator, she was just shrugging out of her coat beside her chair. 

He crossed the bullpen, and found himself unable to push away the vivid detail of his dream. He experienced again the way her hands had felt against his face, and how soft her skin was, and he lamented the fact that he wasn't terribly good at being subtle when it came to his emotional state. He promised himself as he approached her that he would act…normal. Not stare at her, not avoid eye contact, not say something inappropriate, like _Alex, how do you really feel about me, because I want to know? _He wasn't sure he really _did _ want to know the answer to that question yet.

She was dressed in gray slacks and a blue shirt today, and he hid a smile at the way he suddenly thought of the night before and that short black dress as some secret only he knew about. It occurred to him that there was so much like that between them. Who else at One Police Plaza knew Alex Eames had been a prom queen, or that her first boyfriend had cheated on her? Who else knew she had been a member of the Abba fan club, or that she loved Broadway and had wanted to be an actress when she was a little girl? Looking at her now as he crossed the room to their desk, he realized how he'd held everything about her close to him, gathered it together over the years and built an image of the real woman in his mind, the woman behind the cop. How long had she been more than just his partner, he wondered?

Draping her coat over the back of her chair, she glanced up at that moment and their eyes met. The smile she flashed him was perfect, a mixture of mischievous and bashful, and he knew she was thinking about the night before. He knew she'd been at least a little self-conscious in that low-cut cocktail dress and heels and the jewelry that she never wore at work. Returning her smile, Goren allowed himself to think that her expression said _don't you dare tell anyone._

"Morning," he said, offering her the coffee he'd brought.

She took it, hesitated a moment, then said. "Where's yours?"

It hit him with startling effect that he'd completely forgotten to get another coffee for himself, and the silence that hung there was too long to make his reply believable.

"I didn't feel like it today." He made himself look at her, and smiled in amusement at himself. In true Alex Eames fashion, she accepted his explanation and nodded, whether she bought it or not.

"Thank you, Bobby," she said, turning her attention to the cup. She popped the lid off and blew across it as she sat down. Taking a sip, she closed her eyes and smiled. "You're the only one that knows how I like my coffee."

It was a simple thing, but somehow that morning it seemed significant to him. There was so much about him that only she knew, and the familiarity between them was comfortable, easy, evident even in getting a cup of coffee right.

He was still hovering at the edge of the desk, and he told himself to move. He pulled his chair out, hung his own coat over the back, and settled across from her. He bit back a smile at the fact that he desperately wished he had a cup of coffee but couldn't very well pour himself one now.

Eames set her cup down, and her expression became grave, delicate lines creasing her forehead. "I saw the Chief going into Ross' office when I got here," she said evenly, and waited for his response.

Goren glanced behind him at the captain's office, the blinds closed behind the glass. He didn't envy Ross. Turning back to Eames, he offered her a simple smirk and said: "So we know from the people we talked to last night that Jeremy had the camera with him the night he died. We need to find it."

Her lips twitched with amusement, but she nodded. "Right. And we need to find out who he was arguing with. I think I'd feel like an idiot passing around a sketch, though…" She frowned, and Goren almost laughed at their predicament.

They had learned several things from their evening at Therapy, the bar where Jeremy's roommate had placed him the night of his death. Andrew, or, as he referred to himself at the club, Miss Andrea Love, had been quite helpful. He seemed to know everyone that worked at the club, and more than half of the hundreds of people that had been there when they stopped in. He'd produced the bartender on duty the night of Jeremy's death, the stage director, and lighting technician, and three of his friends who'd known Jeremy, all of whom remembered seeing him that night. All of them placed the camera with the victim, and several specifically remembered him using it. It was the recollection of the bartender that had stood out, however. According to him, Jeremy had shown up an hour before the drag show, had a drink, talked to the stage director, then had filmed the first three acts. It was after this that he'd been seen at the end of the bar arguing with someone- a blonde in fishnet tights. The difficult part of identifying this particular someone was that the bartender insisted the blonde was a man in drag. His exact words, Goren recalled with some humor, had been _"Honey, I don't have to be straight to know that bosom ain't real_." It was something Goren chose to take the other man's word for, because he'd been acutely aware the night before of several confirmed men that would have passed for women in any line-up.

More frustrating then potential suspects in disguise was the fact that no one they spoke to remembered ever seeing this particular individual before. The only solid fact they had, and this in great detail from Andrew's friend "Lucy," concerned the pair of designer shades and the boots the blonde had apparently worn. Against their judgment of its potential value, they'd asked him to come in later that afternoon to talk to the sketch artist, in hopes that someone somewhere else would recognize any element of this mysterious character.

"We have to try something," Goren told her. "Because he left with her…him…" He shrugged. "If we have an argument…"

"…we have a potential motive," she finished. "It's too bad no one heard anything they said." She took another drink of her coffee, and Goren noticed the way her eyes flicked beyond his shoulder to Ross's door. Was she worried for him?

"The bartender says he looked upset, though. Said he grabbed her…his…arm and tried to pull him…her…up." He cleared his throat and waved his hand.

"Maybe an ex lover?" Eames suggested, her eyes returning to him, thoughtful.

Goren nodded. That had been his first thought. "One that didn't know he was left handed?"

Eames snorted. "I was married to Joe for eight years and there were all kinds of things he didn't know about me."

_What a waste_, he thought. He said: "I think we need to take a trip out to the Hamptons."

She regarded him silently for a long moment, then nodded. "To take another look at the car, and to look for the camera. Ok…today?" She took a long drink of her coffee, looking at him over the rim of the cup.

He nodded, and stopped just short of suggesting they make a weekend of it. He'd promised himself not to say something inappropriate. But maybe, if things took too long at the Congressman's house… He stopped, and shook his head, appalled at himself.

She set her cup down. "Tomorrow, then?"

He realized she thought he had been shaking his head to her earlier question. "No," he said. "No, I think we should go today. After we get…uh…Lucy…squared away with the sketch artist."

Her lips curved down just slightly, and he caught her confusion. Were both of them sitting across from each other wondering what the other was really thinking?

"Ok," she said. She seemed about to add something else, when her eyes shifted from him. Goren followed her gaze, turning around to see the chief coming from Ross's now open door. Without looking at either of them, he stalked across the bullpen, and Goren saw that his jaw was clenched, his posture stiff. He shot a questioning look at Ross, who stood in his doorway, watching the chief's retreating back. The captain's forehead was creased, and he rubbed one hand against his temple. He looked distressed, and when he turned his gaze on him, Goren prepared himself for the inevitable.

Instead, when their eyes met, Ross' expression smoothed. He dropped his hand to his side and smiled, his green eyes sparkling with amusement. Then he disappeared back into his office without a word.

More than a little mystified, Goren turned back to Eames, and found the same expression on her face.

"I guess the captain's finally on my side," he said slowly, curious if that was true.

Eames raised an eyebrow. "It's about time."


	6. One Side Of Loose Ends

_It's been a little over four months. Grad school eats my soul. _

_That's all I have so say at the moment, beyond that I am done with year one of my masters degree in five days. _

_Yay for the return of creativity. _

* * *

It was mid-afternoon, turning gray, and the warm weather of the past few days had succumbed to a moist front from the eastern seaboard. A fine mist had been gathering on the windshield for half an hour, and Eames finally clicked the wipers on to clear her view.

"Turn left at the light," Goren said from the seat beside her. She glanced at him and his eyes returned to the map open across his lap, where it had lain for most of the trip from Manhattan. He'd dutifully studied it off and on in relative silence for the last two hours, despite the fact that the better part of the drive was a straight shot on the interstate.

Her attention drifted back to the road as she applied the brakes for that intersection her partner had been dutifully anticipating. What had she really expected from him? A heart to heart to kill the time? A sing-along? Yes, there had been some moments in the past month… moments she thought they might be growing closer, but she knew, despite her longing for more of him, for a willing opening of his soul, Robert Goren would never be the talkative type. But then, neither was she.

As she made the left turn on Oak Avenue, Eames checked the dashboard clock. They had made good time from Manhattan. Surprising, since it was a Friday. Perhaps it was the dark cloud bank rolling in from the Atlantic and the rain in the forecast that deterred affluent New York from their weekend playground. Their own purpose in the Hamptons was hardly pleasant a one.

Congressman Aidan Barrow, a friend of the captain's, had come to the precinct several days before insisting that his son, Jeremy had been the victim of murder, despite the fact that his death the weekend before had been labeled a suicide. Indeed, there were several things that didn't add up. The gun that had killed Jeremy, a handgun licensed to his father, had been placed in his right hand, while the congressman's son had been left handed. Their investigation into the last night Jeremy had been seen alive had produced a missing video camera and a witness that had seen the victim arguing with an individual that may have been the last person to see him alive. In conjunction with all this, the case was an example of terribly shabby police work: no gun-shot residue tests on the victim's hands, and no work up on the car at all, which is where, in a deserted Hell's Kitchen parking garage, the young man's body had been discovered.

This was one of several loose ends she and Goren intended to tie down, and the impending situation had the flavor of delicacy that her partner was especially poor at handling. She felt one corner of her lips lift in a smile, a bit inappropriate maybe, at the thought. It was fondness, she thought, for despite the fact that Goren was terribly irreverent in the search for truth, they were on a page. Even grief was not sacred, for even criminals grieved. That was something she had learned from him, and she did not envy the depth of his empathy.

He shook a crease out of the map at that moment, and he pointed through the windshield at a street intersecting on the right. "There."

Eames took the turn, thinking that though the houses here were easily three times the size of hers, the features of the neighborhood were not unlike those of her own. Every house had a lawn, and trees, which was why she would never leave her home in Rockaway. Memories of cook-outs in her back yard, her nephew playing with her parents' dog in the on the lawn… they were some of her favorites. Though she would never understand excess, she understood grass and gardens, and how they were an escape from the city.

"Is this it?" she asked, and had to clear her throat, for the first time realizing that while Goren had been silent most of the trip, so had she.

"Thirteen-ten," he said, checking his legal pad and nodding toward the house she indicated. It was an elegant, three-story Georgian home, painted white, with a red front door. An American flag, still brightly colored despite the damp weather, adorned a pole alongside a two-car garage at the end of an empty driveway. In the summer, flowering vines would wrap around the exterior columns, but in late November they were little more than dark spidery veins against the white.

Eames pulled the SUV up to the curb in front of the mailbox, and they both left the truck in simultaneous silence. It had been a long time since they'd needed to plan an encounter. It hadn't always been that way. Goren had once interrupted her questions with his clumsy redirection, bowling over her thought process in a way that had, at one time, made her livid. Now, she anticipated him, and she knew he had learned to value her own dissimilar intuition so that he listened to her, and built on her insight. That sort of… near telepathy… was not uncommon in partners as a general rule, but she imagined it was uncommon for him.

It had to mean something. Didn't it?

Or did she just want it to?

Eames paused on the sidewalk, pocketing the keys in her leather jacket while she waited for Goren to circle the SUV. He stepped up onto the curb with a slight grimace, and with his binder tucked beneath his arm, he moved toward her with slightly more of a limp than was normal. She frowned with concern, but smoothed the expression before he glanced up. Or so she thought. When he caught her gaze, something passed across his expression that was in part a crease of his forehead, but it dissolved into a half-smile. His eyes left her face as his shuffling gait toward the front door did not slow, and Eames took several quick steps to regain his side. Late afternoon was shifting toward evening beneath the cloud cover, and the rain, more akin to mist, was a chill film on her skin. It clung like morning dew to her partner's black suit coat, and she noticed, without meaning to, the way the moisture separated the close-cut hair at the nape of his neck.

This visit to congressman Barrow's family home was not unannounced. Even if they had thought it might be better to surprise the victim's family, there were a number of inhibiting limitations in the major case squad. Channels had to navigated. It was mostly undeserved enforced deference to the upper class…ironic for New York's lower-paid "finest."

Goren, despite his longer stride, reached the door at the same moment she did, and as was characteristic of their partnership, he waited for her to knock. In the intervening moments, as she stared hard at the door, she sensed him taking in their surroundings. Gaze on the ground, tracing the windowsill, body leaning forward over the potted plant beside the door. Who knew what details might emerge.

Less than thirty seconds passed before the click of the lock preceded the opening door, and a blonde woman, gracefully middle aged, appeared before them with what struck Eames immediately as a completely false, and very practiced, expression. Her smile was too quick, and didn't touch her cold blue eyes, and her motion was stiff as she took several steps backward to allow them space to enter her home.

"Detectives." It was a clipped tone, with a high lilt that was perhaps meant to be cheerful, but fell short.

"Mrs. Barrow?" Eames asked, while her partner stepped past her into the house and paused abruptly in the foyer, glancing at Eames.

The other woman, her expression not changing, began to close the door, and Eames had to step quickly into the house, her shoulder colliding with her partner's arm. Goren's arm shifted back, his hand catching her waist as he reflexively tried to shift her out of the closing space. Eames ground her teeth against the audacity of her consciousness at his touch, and she refused to look at him, though she felt every moment that it took for his hand to drop away.

They were faced then with Caroline Barrow's short-skirted hips swaying away from them on two-inch heels, and Eames jumped on the chance to follow her. Because she was still attune to him, she knew he was still a moment longer before he followed.

They crossed hardwood floors, beneath high ceilings, and behind a rhythmic _click click click _of Caroline Barrow's heels. She led them , with an eerie, hanging silence, into another room. The sound of a television preceded their entry, and Eames recognized the animated voices of a cartoon her nephew watched. As she entered the room in the wake of the congressman's wife, she glanced immediately to the Italian silk sofa where a boy, perhaps fifteen, sixteen years old, sat with his feet tucked beneath him, remote control in his hand, eyes trained on the television screen before him. He glanced at them with pale blue eyes, and then turned his attention back to the cartoon. Caroline, passing him, snatched the remote from his hand and turned the television off, then sank onto the matching couch opposite the boy. He could be no other than her son, with the same delicate jaw and blonde hair.

She flicked a hand in a rather general direction, and her son tucked his feet tighter beneath him and drew a blanket around his shoulders. He turned his attention on the window as Eames found a seat on the far end of the same couch, marveling at the way that human weirdness in the face tragedy failed to incite her sympathy. She glanced at her partner's face as he settled into an armchair, and she knew there was something there that was evidence of a vast difference between them. There always was. What did he see?

"I hate to say that my husband isn't here right now," Caroline Barrow said curtly, and Eames looked away from Goren in time to see the way the other woman's fingers clenched into a fist against her knee. Eames opened her mouth, to say …she didn't know what, but Jeremy's mother cut her short. "So what questions can I answer for you?" Eames saw the muscles of Caroline's throat move past a hard swallow. This was a woman practiced in hiding her emotion.

"The uh…" Goren cleared his throat, and Eames saw him glance away from the boy, focusing his attention on Caroline. "The gun your… it was registered to your husband?" Goren's eyes flicked back to the boy, and Eames felt a sense of discomfort at discussing this in front of him.

Caroline merely nodded. "Aidan bought that gun for me, to keep here at the house. It was always in a box, in our closet. I don't know when Jeremy took it. " The words were snappish, short. Challenging, almost. Her posture was stiff, her eyes dry. Only the white knuckles of the hands that circled her knees betrayed any feeling.

"When was the last time you saw Jeremy, Mrs. Barrow?" Eames asked.

The other woman didn't skip a beat, as though she had rehearsed the answer. "Three weeks ago. I had lunch with him in Midtown." Her gaze swung to her other son, and remained there.

Goren shifted, subtly, but it stayed Eames' tongue. She knew him that well. "Patrick? This must be pretty hard for you." He was addressing the teenager that was Eames' distant company on that couch.

There was a barely imperceptible shrug of shoulders. Now there was an angry crease across Patrick Barrow's forehead, his gaze still on the misty landscape beyond the window.

"Patrick and Jeremy weren't all that close," Caroline interjected into the awkwardness. "Jeremy was Aidan's son by his first wife. They…" She stopped, adjusted her skirt around her knees, inhaled, and smiled.

"We're looking for Jeremy's camera," Goren said then, his gaze swinging slowly from Patrick to his mother.

"Hand held camera," Eames filled in the details. "Witnesses put it with him, the night he died." Compassion took a back seat, sometimes, to the truth.

"You mean the camera he was using at that fucking _fag_ bar?"

Eames' gaze snapped around, at the moment his mother hissed "_Patrick!" _

_"What?"_ Patrick snapped. "You know Dad knew about it." He muttered with slightly less vehemence.

Caroline's eyes remained wide, not accusing, Eames thought. They were apologetic, at least, when they turned on the detectives again. She sucked in a deep breath, shuddering, behind her smile. Her eyes flicked from the detectives to her son, and back.

"So… you want to see his car?"


	7. Losing Inhibition

_It's been a really long time since I felt like writing, and honestly since I've had time to watch TV. I've missed most of the last 10 episodes, but I saw one two nights ago and the muse has hounded me to work on this story ever since. I hope you all will accept my humble return to fanfic, and thanks to all of you that have kept up the comments on this series over the last months. Enjoy! _

* * *

The restaurant he had suggested at the end of their long drive back from the Hamptons was an anachronism, and it suited him perfectly. There was an oil painting over their table, cracked with age, of some distant coastal fishing village. The booth seats were reddish leather, brass tacked to wood that had been polished so many times it was worn smooth. A candle guttered on the table, dancing crookedly along near empty wine glasses. Her eyes focused past the reflection it made in the window, to the dark street behind him. She could see slush building on the pavement, and could hear the wet, wintry sound of it as a single car drove past. The warm fall weather was finally giving way to cold.

Alex returned her attention to the man across from her, and smiled to herself. He had a wine list, pages long, and had given it his full attention. His first selection, which they'd shared over dinner, was an airy white, and the latest, which sat mostly finished between them, was mahogany and left a warm flush in her cheeks. She watched him turn the pages slowly, and noticed the way his eyes seemed to shift to something distant every other moment, as if remembering something associated with this or that vintage. Alex suddenly wished that she'd gone home to change beforehand, and was acutely aware of her plain slacks and blouse. She remembered nights out with Joe, playing pool, drinking beer with his loud work buddies. It had been fun, she had to admit, but part of her had always wanted Joe to treat her like a … woman. Despite years of marriage, however, it didn't seem that he'd ever seen his wife that way. Perhaps it was the disadvantage of being a female cop.

She took a sip of her wine, set the glass down softly, and shifted in the booth, subtly tugging at her blouse so that it better emphasized her figure. As fate would have it, Goren looked up at that precise moment, and she reacting quickly by continuing to adjust, realigning the hem as though she was simply smoothing out a wrinkle. He stared at her a moment, his eyes familiarly unreadable, then he set the wine list down and drained his glass. Alex found herself biting back a smile, too amused by her behavior to be embarrassed. My god.. she was in her forties! Her fingers found the stem of her wine glass, twirling the remaining liquid slowly, and realized the smile remained on her face.

"I've been thinking about the blood spatter in the car," he said.

Alex simply stared at him for a moment, then cleared her throat and hid a burst of laughter in a quick swallow of wine. Blood spatter. Of course.

"And?" she said, a bit hoarsely.

He didn't answer immediately, signaling their server, who laid aside his broom and spent a moment with Goren discussing the merits of the year 1984. When he departed for the decided-upon vintage, her partner propped the wine list on its side, behind the candle.

"The pictures of Jeremy show him leaning back in the seat, his head tilted to the right. The entry wound was just above his ear." Goren tapped the side of his head, and leaned far forward over the table. His elbow nudged the wine list, shifting the candle, and Alex grabbed the offending menu, tucking it safely into the seat beside her.

"But the blood spatter is forward," he continued, drawing her attention back to him. "Heaviest left of the steering column, across the door handle. Like he was leaning forward, trying to duck, when he was shot."

"Forensics will have that GSR report on our desks by Monday morning, " she reminded him.

He sat back, shook his head. "It's not suicide," he concluded.

Alex paused while the proprietor of the restaurant delivered their third bottle of wine. She tried to read the label, seeing something that looked like Italian, and frowned as the clink of new glasses on the table reminded her of the SUV parked on the curb. She'd passed irresponsible two glasses ago.

When the other man had departed, they both sat in silence for a moment. Goren's eyes were distant, lost in thought, and Alex watched him. A large part of her wanted to tell him that this was Friday night, and long past five pm, and time to leave work behind. But something kept her from it.

Instead she said, tiredly, "Yeah. I already know we're looking for a perp. "

Goren's attention shifted back to her, and something passed across his face as he looked at her. Distantly, she felt her own expression. Frowning, a crease in her forehead.

Her partner cleared his throat, propped his elbows on the table, and leaned forward again, one hand encircling the base of his wine glass. He stared into it, then cleared his throat softly, smiling. "I took a train from Berlin to a little town in Northern Italy the summer of 1984," he told her. "The first place we stopped after we crossed the border."

Alex blinked. He changed gears so quickly. She started to take a sip of her wine, realized she hadn't responded, and nodded. "Bring back memories?" she asked, feeling a residual stiffness in her voice.

Goren didn't seem to notice. He looked at her, his smile dancing in his eyes now. It was a disarming expression, but Alex was wary of relaxing back into the moment, only to be wrenched away with talk of death, murder, blood…the stuff she left on the doorstep at night.

But he surprised her. Instead, he talked to her in a way he never had. Perhaps it was the wine, but he told her about his experience in Italy, making her laugh with stories about a pretty Italian girl he and his army buddies had made fools of themselves over, and about getting thrown out of the Vatican. The night wore on, and the candle and the wine bottle wore down, until Alex was warm throughout, more than a little drunk.

"And that," Goren said, draining his glass and setting it down between them. "Is why you don't want to drive in Naples."

Alex had her fingers curled over her mouth, giggling like a little girl. Tears of laughter clung to her eyelashes, and she brushed them away, composing herself with a swallow of wine. She shook her head. "I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Bobby." She said it fondly.

He flashed her a lopsided smile, but his eyes were tired. "It comes and goes," he said softly.

"I love this side of you." It was out before she had a chance to filter it. She saw his eyebrows lift just slightly before she swallowed the rest of her wine, fishing her phone out of her pocket as a distraction. She flipped it open, scrolled past a few missed calls from an unfamiliar number, before slipping it back into the coat on the seat beside her. She brought out the keys to the SUV in place of the phone.

She managed an aloof smile for her partner, as if the word "love" had not really just come out of her mouth, but she knew he didn't buy it. She played the drunk card instead, but poorly, motioning toward the window and the slushy street beyond it. "I better get home before I can't see straight." Even she could hear the slight slur in her words. Bobby cocked his head just slightly, one side of his lips curved up in a curious smile. Alex cleared her throat, nodded, smiled, and began gathering her coat. She started to rise, when Bobby shifted, and his hand came down on her wrist. His grip was strong, drawing her back slowly into her seat. His eyes held her gaze for a long moment, that crooked, amused smile still hovering on his face, and then he relaxed his grip just slightly. His other hand moved from the seat beside him, and he then he was slowly coaxing her fingers away from the keys to the SUV.

"Alex…" He took the keys from her, put them away, somewhere. Finally he looked back, and the hand that had been holding her wrist shifted, one thumb tracing her skin softly, from her wrist to her palm. She felt her fingers curl around that thumb, and he folded her hand into his own. His smile softened.

"You know my apartment is two blocks from here," he said.


	8. Interpretion

"_You know my house is two blocks from here," _he'd said. Of course she knew that. The thought had rolled over in her mind several times from that first suggestion of a glass of wine over dinner, again with the second bottle. She also knew that it would be easy to take a cab – one phone call and a $20 bill and the problem was solved. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had to leave the police business placard on the dash of their work vehicle and let Goren pick her up the next day. He'd made a fond habit of celebrating wrap-ups of particularly difficult cases by taking her out for a margarita, and they never failed to go straight to her head. There had been times, too, where she knew she'd let her feminine charm work its magic, enjoying feeling attractive near him, and safe, and secretly hoping he would have one glass too many himself and ask her over. But he never had.

Until now. Alex wondered, feeling his presence at her back as they walked toward the door of the restaurant, if this had been his intention all along. He was, even after years as his partner, still hard to read, exhibiting only anger, or that sly deceptive flirtatiousness he sometimes used on their female suspects. She felt sorry for them, though that manner gave her the chills.

Goren stretched an arm over her shoulder and pressed the glass door open for her. Alex sucked in a surprised breath and hunched down into her coat. It was almost midnight, and hours of darkness had turned the balmy fall afternoon bitter. The wine burned in her cheeks, cooled by the moisture that the fierce wind threw against them.

Alex hiked her purse onto her shoulder and glanced at Goren as let the restaurant door swing closed behind them. He missed her gaze, giving the area around them a thorough scan.

"Someone would have to be crazy to be out in this weather," she said with half a smile. Her eyes glanced again at the SUV parked along the corner, and she took a breath to suggest that she call a cab. Goren cut that short when his gloved hand tucked into the crook of her elbow and he pulled her near him, guiding her off the curb onto the slushy street. As they crossed to the next block, leaving the car farther behind, Alex felt something strange behind to tickle her stomach. The pace of her heart quickened, and not due to the two steps she had to take for every one of Goren's.

When they reached the other side of the street, he slowed, and as Alex stepped back onto the sidewalk, she shifted her arm in expectation, thinking he would withdraw his hand now that they were on safer ground. Instead, offering her a quick glance to see if she'd found solid footing, he drew her closer. Alex let herself ease into the contact, staring at the toes of her boots, and trying not to think about where they were going.

Maybe the same thoughts were going through his head. He was silent beside her for the length of time it took to walk the two blocks to his apartment. Or perhaps he was just wary – the one time she glanced at him, his head was turned slightly away from her, facing an unlit alley. The neighborhood was the kind a cop could afford this close to the city.

The apartment was on the second floor of a brownstone, and even in wintry muck managed to look welcoming. Antique copper gaslights burned on either side of a double oak door, which was trimmed in garland that smelled like real pine. Goren gave her his hand as she climbed the six granite stairs, while the colored lights that lined the interior front window to the right cast a twinkling rainbow over the frosted ground. She found herself smiling, remembering the way other mother had always decorated their house for Christmas.

"I never figured you much for this type, Bobby," she joked softly, and he offered her a wry smirk. Slipping his key into the lock, he cocked his head.

"That's my contribution," he said, and Alex followed his gaze up. Nestled against the upper eaves of the building face was a camera, trained on the entranceway and blinking a pointed green.

"Ah," she frowned, and gave the street behind them a quick once-over.

Goren pushed the door open and stood aside for her to enter. "Mable put lights on the outside last winter, and they were gone in less than 24 hours."

"I'm surprised the camera lasted this long," Alex remarked, drying her boots on the red and green woven mat in the foyer.

"It didn't," Goren said. The door thumped softly shut behind them. A lock clicked. "That's the third one." He passed her, the tread of his tall frame heavy on the stairs as he ascended. Alex remained behind for a moment, ran the cold fingers of one hand unconsciously through her wind-blown hair, then hurried to follow.

"So uh … who's Mable, again?" Her quicker step brought her easily to the second landing, behind him.

"Landlady."

"Oh." She concentrated on navigating the stairs, and said nothing more until they were at his door. He unlocked the apartment, taking one step inside. There was the click of a pulled string, and a lamp was on. Goren found her expectant gaze, and she realized belatedly as a sympathetic smile crept across his lips, that she was staring wide eyed like a deer in headlights. He raised both eyebrows, boyish, and gestured into the apartment with one hand.

Alex jerked her gaze away in embarrassment, but had to bite back a smile of her own. She edged past him, concentrating on giving the apartment a thorough inspection. She had been her once, in all the years that she'd known him. It was the day of his mother's funeral. The photo album they'd spent a pot of coffee over was still on the table by the couch. Alex had felt closer to him that day than any other in their partnership, as though the distraction of grief allowed him to finally let her fill a void in his life, a void where family should be.

She jumped when she felt his touch, would have turned, but his fingers pressed deeply into her shoulders to calm her. The surprise ebbed, but her heart hammered. Her eyelids slipped half shut, and she rocked back, slightly, toward him. His hands eased, and his arms were encircling her loosely, fingers dipping beneath the lapels of her coat. Her chest swelled with anticipation, desire, and she resisted not all when he took her coat. As she slipped her arms out of it, she leaned back, toward his chest …

… leaned back …

Not a moment too soon, her sense of balance told her he wasn't there, and a shifted foot kept her from stumbling in disorientation. She turned her head, and muttered a curse under her breath. He was near the door again, shrugging out of his own coat to hang it beside hers. Alex turned her reddened cheeks away, heading for the kitchen.

"I'll start a pot of coffee," she said firmly. _You're too old for this, Alex. He's your PARTNER, for crying out loud!_

He didn't say anything, so she busied herself with the coffee pot. She felt the buzz of alcohol draining away in the face of a storm of other emotions. It was after midnight, and she was at her partner's apartment. He was a man, she was a woman. He'd invited her up, something he'd never done. And was that ploy with her coat intentional? Had he been just a little too close? She punched the "start" button on the coffee machine a little harder than she intended. She had been single for years, but she liked to think being a detective kept her senses, her ability to read men, sharp.

The sound of soft jazz made her turn her head, in time to see Bobby recork a crystal decanter of bourbon. He swirled the liquid under his nose, caught her glance, and then he was walking toward the kitchen. She flashed him a quick smile, then turned her attention to a catalogue on his countertop. She was keenly aware of his presence in the small kitchen, heard the clink of ice in his glass, but still kept her eyes on the magazine while he leaned against the counter opposite her.

* * *

_To be continued VERY soon (I promise) from Bobby's perspective!_


End file.
